Washington, D.C.

[Christine]

Just saw on the news tonight: AAA has determined that Washington, D.C. is the 2nd most expensive city to vacation in. The most expensive city is Honolulu, Hawaii. It costs approximately $518 per day for a family to tour DC. So, save your money!

 

[Geoff_M]

It costs approximately $518 per day for a family to tour DC. So, save your money!

It doesn't have to be that way... We got a 2BR suite at a Marriott between DC and Baltimore for $150/night, drove 15 minutes to a Metro park-n-ride and paid $3.50/day for parking, bought 7 day unlimited Metro passes for all of us for $160 total. Admissions were a total of $0. We ate breakfast in the suite, bought counter service for lunch in one of the Smithsonians for around $40, bought an afternoon snack, and ate a late supper back at the suites. By my math our basic expenses were only around $285 a day for a family of five.

 

[mylilnikita]

Woo Hoo!
DD7 and I are going to D.C. in the morning for a few days!! It will be my first time actually staying there. Wish us luck!

 

[CPM]

We only paid $159.00 for the Renaiassance, it was a beautiful hotel. Most of the attractions we went to were free. We never had time or energy to eat anywhere special, so it was one of our most reasonable vacations ever!

 

[Christine]

It doesn't have to be that way... We got a 2BR suite at a Marriott between DC and Baltimore for $150/night, drove 15 minutes to a Metro park-n-ride and paid $3.50/day for parking, bought 7 day unlimited Metro passes for all of us for $160 total. Admissions were a total of $0. We ate breakfast in the suite, bought counter service for lunch in one of the Smithsonians for around $40, bought an afternoon snack, and ate a late supper back at the suites. By my math our basic expenses were only around $285 a day for a family of five.

Yeah, that's basically what the news reporters had to say. They said that most people paying this much are using the internet or the toll-free numbers to the hotels to book their rooms. Doing that will run you almost $300 per night. The advice given was to get the phone number to the hotel directly (versus booking of their corporate website), to stay in D.C. over the weekends where the room rates are cheaper, and to look for packages offered by the hotels. Doing all these things will easily get your room rate down into the $150s.

 

[Geoff_M]

They said that most people paying this much are using the internet or the toll-free numbers to the hotels to book their rooms.

Actually, it was Marriott's 1-800 number that found the place and got me the rate. I looked and it was also on their corporate website. From our experience, the "trick" was to look outside of the city. If we'd moved about 10 miles closer to DC (to Silver Springs), we'd have paid $100 more per night for the same accomodations at another Marriott. If you can live with not staying within DC itself, not being a short walk from a Metro station, and don't mind a short drive to an outlying Metro station, you can save a lot of money when visiting DC.... or at least that's what we found.

 

[Christine]

Actually, it was Marriott's 1-800 number that found the place and got me the rate. I looked and it was also on their corporate website. From our experience, the "trick" was to look outside of the city. If we'd moved about 10 miles closer to DC (to Silver Springs), we'd have paid $100 more per night for the same accomodations at another Marriott. If you can live with not staying within DC itself, not being a short walk from a Metro station, and don't mind a short drive to an outlying Metro station, you can save a lot of money when visiting DC.... or at least that's what we found.

That's definitely true. I think the news report that I heard last night were from AAA's latest survey and they were only using room rates found inside the city.